I would emphasize the "self-proclaimed" and although I am geologist, not an evolutionary biologist, some of his stuff went so far out of line that even I could smell its stench.
One of the great ironies is that he attacked other biologists so strongly that many creationists were able to misportray the state of evolutionary theory as "in disarray" or "debatable"...
And he used his knowledge of baseball to make himself seem "one of the people." I am sorry that he is dead, but he was an bad influence on on scientific thought and debate.